Raw Materials
To mark the occasion of International Women’s Day, Apollo Tyres has inaugurated a rubber sheet making unit at Vellavoor Panchayat in Kottayam, Kerala. Established with the help of one of company’s reputed Suppliers, the unit was inaugurated by Adv S Jayasooryan, vice chairman, Rubber Board of India in the presence of the Panchayat President, other Rubber Board members and the team from Apollo Tyres.
Solvay has appointed Rodrigo Elizondo as president of its special chem global business unit, and Michael Finelli as president of its global specialty polymers business unit.
Rodrigo Elizondo, previously commercial director for special chem, has more than 26 years with the group. He has held commercial leadership and business management roles in North America, Europe and Asia for various business lines within Special Chem.
Bridgestone Americas (Bridgestone) and NRGene, a genomic big data solutions company, are collaborating on research efforts to enhance the company’s US alternative domestic natural rubber breeding programme. They will be working in tandem to sequence and assemble multiple genomes of guayule, a rubber-producing plant indigenous to the hot, dry environments of the Southwestern United States and North Central Mexico, to develop new, high-yielding varieties. The first-ever, two guayule genomes have already been sequenced and completely assembled and a physical and genetic map are being developed which will provide a high level of accuracy and efficiency for breeding improvement.
Directa Plus plc, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, announces that the Ufficio Brevetti e Marchi (Italian Patent and Trademark Office) has granted the Company a patent for the product and application of its new graphene-based solution for enhancing the performance of tyres. Specifically, the patent covers Directa Plus’ ‘elastomeric composition comprising graphene and tyre components comprising said composition’.
The Sri Lanka Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Rubber Products (SLAMERP) celebrated its 31st Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Cinnamon Grand Colombo on the 16 January 2018. The association was inaugurated in 1985 in order to offer “comprehensive representation, advocacy and to champion to all manufacturers and exporters of rubber products in Sri Lanka”.
Kordsa is expanding its polyester capacity at its plant in Izmit, Turkey. With the addition of new facilities and equipment, Kordsa aims to have an additional polyester yarn capacity of 7000 tons with an additional 3,500 m2 area in its current facility this year.
A leading tyre manufacturer has placed a first order on Swedish tyre pyrolysis firm Enviro’s recycled carbon black (EnviroCB) for immediate delivery.
“Initially the order volume is small, but is expected to increase significantly over time. The customer is a global manufacturer of tyres and rubber applications and this order relates to industrial tyres”, says Thomas Sörensson, CEO of Enviro.
Pirelli has signed a contract with synthetic rubber maker Nizhnekamskneftekhim to establish supply in 2018. According to Nizhnekamskneftekhim, the contract was signed during a working visit to Milan by the president of the Republic of Tatarstan in December.
Orion Engineered Carbons has completed construction of a new carbon black production line at its plant in Yeosu, South Korea, to produce specialty products. The line started production on 23 November and has begun commercial sales.
At the end of November, Japan’s Toray Industries admitted to 149 cases of quality data falsification at a materials-making subsidiary that span eight years. According to a report by Reuters, the firm said the cheating involved tyre-strengthening cord that was sold to 13 clients by Toray Hybrid Cord.
With sods of soil sliding from shiny shovels, work on the Continental ‘Taraxagum Lab Anklam’ research and test laboratory officially began on Monday. Construction of the facility will now begin in earnest, and Continental Reifen Deutschland anticipates that the lab, based near Germany’s Baltic coast, will be operational in autumn 2018. Continental is investing a total of 35 million euros in the project, a sum supported by a subsidy of 11.6 million euros from the Ministry of Economics in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
For the past six years, Continental has worked with partners on projects to source rubber from Russian dandelions for its tyre production. In 2016, the company announced plans to establish a new facility for industrialising this process. A seven-acre site in Anklam, not far from Germany’s Baltic coast, was selected for this research laboratory. The tyre maker now reports that groundbreaking for the 35 million-euro initial phase of its Taraxagum Lab Anklam will take place this coming Monday.
A patent has been granted in India for a special grade of epoxidised natural rubber (ENR) jointly developed by the research and development team at Apollo Tyres and the Rubber Research Institute of India. The tyre rubber compound was granted patent no. 287630 by the Government of India’s Patent Office on 21 September.
Michelin has announced its acquisition of Lehigh Technologies, a US-based company that has developed a patented cryogenic turbo mill technology for transforming rubber from end-of-life tyres and industrial goods into materials for new tyres and other products. The acquisition was completed on 13 October.
On 4 October Bridgestone Canada Inc. (Bridgestone) announced the closure of its Firestone Fibers and Textiles facility based in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. The closure affects 35 salaried employees and 135 hourly employees, and will be conducted in phases beginning 31 December 2017, with operations completely ceasing in the second half of 2018.
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